I totally back that.
In this argumentation I only think of Team Doubles in Arena.
The Arena ranking has several advantages:
1) Well-practised players tend to play the Arena more often which is more interesting for other well-practised players. And since you can not lose anything in Competetive playlists, you'll play against random teams which is quite boring.
2) Adding Slayer to the gametypes is rather problematic. The key to win is as you know to be in possession of the power weapons. This means that the team of two with the power weapons has an enormous advantage against the players who only have an automatic weapon and a pistol where otherwise had been a DMR. The chance of winning is decreased and equal opportunites are gone. The first team with the PWs is almost unbeatable.
3) The thrill behind every game fades with the conscience it is just another Competetive game. Like in sports it is way more interesting if there is something to win or to lose. Competetive games give this thrill just inadequately.
4) Adding Swords (and Hammers) is pointless in a way. Players who use the Shotgun have an advantage against players with the Sword because this weapon needs direct contact to be lethal. The Shotgun does not. So the teams (on Countdown for example) will rush for the Shotgun and leave the Sword behind since it has no chance against it anyways. And even if both weapons were equally strong it would just take away the advantage of the Shotgun you just picked up. This in fact is not really problematic but that two weapons cancel each other out. On Powerhouse for instance are several PWs which is totally okay since there are various types of those.
5) Players who lose tend more towards leaving the game because the punishment is not as bad as it was in the Arena.
6) The fact that you play against more random people (meaning not well-practised or tactically-unorganised players) is not encouraging to play tactically on your own. And for some people Halo: Reach is choice number one in videogames because it has an excellent weapon balancing system which forces players to fall back on tactical loopholes in case you want to win. This balance is endangered and your own game behaviour might get untactical on its own.
7) Too many changes on one blow might alienate players from their game. Gaming habits are suddenly not their anymore for when gametypes are changed. (As it happened to myself, since I played 85% Double Team in Arena)
I hope my English was understandable.
-eight5

Agreed. Arena needs to include the "pro" style settings of playing with NO RADAR and NO JETPACK - in both the 4v4 and 2v2 lists. This is how competitive Halo has been since Halo 1.
Not to mention you need a rank system for "pro" style playlists such as the Arena 4v4 and 2v2. I want to keep track if I am getting better or getting worse easily through the on-screen UI, and a rank system can provide that.

What the crap are you talking about the new ranking system is stupid none of my friends play halo so when I play arena my team always suck so my rating is going to go down because of that BULL$@#$ this is the stupidest thing they have done plus they are getting rid of assist points WHAT HAPPEN TO THE SO CALLED TEAMWORK BUNGIE WAS TALKING ABOUT THEY SHORE DID SCREW IT UP THIS TIME BUNGIE=IDIOTS

Yea I know bungie really did screw up this time. All of my friends play Black Ops so when I play arena I always get crappy team mates but I still get a good rating because of trueskill rating now they are going to take it away so I can't ever get ranked up because of my teammates suck. Sometimes my friends will play halo and we do good because we team fire so now they are taking away assist yea bungie really -Blamed!- up this time plus moving double to the social playlist was really stupid so I hope bungie reads these comments and doesn't screw up everything else.

i'm having trouble connecting to the server for the last 2-3 day's all i've been getting is "halo reach server is not available at this time please try again later" have i been banned for some reason i've had no message saying that i have and if i have i don't know what i did wrong (if playing the game the way it should be played is wrong then i'm guilty as hell, but if there just penalizing me because i've only just got the game i'll be pissed off), i have had only 5 multiplayer games and about 21 campaign and have been playing campaign in single player with about 8-9 hours playtime, last time i was on was nearly 2 weeks ago and now i can't even get my challenges to come up so i earn any credits for them or anything.
if i have been banned could someone from the bungie team tell me why and how long it's for.

Uh yeah this is the dumbest update ever. Let combine arena into one playlist and one gametype so that we leave no variety for our users? Stupid. Assists are worth less points so being a good teammate means nothing? Stupid. Put team doubles in a "competitive" playlist? Stop calling it that. Anything in the "competitive" playlist is social not competitive. No one gives two -blam!-s about playing to win. Way to go bungie, keep making your game worse. Idiots.

[quote][b]Posted by:[/b] TAY TMW
when are they going to be available? i like the new avatars[/quote]
TBD (Stosh has to determine which would make good additions to the current avatar list)
[Edited on 02.20.2011 2:26 PM PST]

So apparently Bungie's enormous egos cant let go of Arena, The Arena, and its next incarnation THE Arena. Just frag this absolute failure of an idea (1-3% of total online Reach players is quite the achievement). Go back to the traditional numerical ranked playlists and gain back at least an ounce of the massive respect you've lost.
PS: all you little fan boys who applaud everything Bungie says or does in their reports need to remove the hand from @ss that works your responses like a puppeteer.

love that there changing the arena all though i think they should get rid of seasons completley and try and make it as much like the old tdm format as possible. thats what made halo...halo i also think if you play alot and you get into a league they shouldint be able to knock you out of it if your not playing alot. that there makes me not want to invest time in it. i miss the old tdm format this reach garbage is getting old real old. i find myself going back to H3 more and more trying to re-capture the real magic that took me into the halo universe in the first place. not this load of crap called arena.

Yay! [url=http://www.bungie.net/images/News/Inline11/bwu_0218/allstars/BearsSadEnd.jpg]Mine[/url] was picked....No star though....
And I misread the instructions and thought it had to be taken from in-game somehow...Doh! Oh well.....
Some good entries all round though chaps and chappesses.....and congrats to those who got star status!

I apologize for being negative, because in general I feel the game is fantastic. That said, I'm very disappointed with the inclusion of Evade and the upcoming death of Doubles Arena (the best playlist in the game).
It's frustrating that it can take +10 minutes to find a game in the Arena playlists due to the lack of players, and I suspect these changes will not help. The addition of transparency and real-time tracking of division placement (and percentiles) is the change that is needed as it would go great lengths in bringing back the "1-50" crowd.
What a bummer, though. I'm not sure what I'm going to play without Doubles.

New avatars made the update pretty damn sweet.
Sage beard entries were especially lulzy, and I'm damn near tempted to ditch my 4-year-old Not Quite an Octagon for the [url=http://www.bungie.net/Forums/posts.aspx?postID=17207937]Hola[/url] one.

During the last weeks I never doubt about Bungie's Philosophy!
Bungie Keep Treating everyone in the office like Kings and Queens, no need to remind you, but they're all a part that makes the Bungie Secret Sauce so Awesome!
Excellent Update, however I'm really worried about the new Arena Gametype:
[i]The gametype used will have the following basic settings: DMR/AR/1Frag/Sprint, Evade, Jetpack, and Hologram with Motion Tracker ON.[/i]
As someone said earlier, many people will never hop on The Arena playlist again, due to the fact it will indeed become very friendly to casual players.
Let's see how this comes out....

[quote][b]Posted by:[/b] Negimas117
I understand. You are technically right, the amount of effort put into yours was probably a lot more than a lot of the people who got the stars.
I believe that the reason the people that didn't have nearly as much skill got the star is for multiple reasons.
For one, they want to encourage people that even people without a lot of skill can do it.
For two, they don't want all their good artists to be gone :)
[url=http://www.bungie.net/images/News/Inline11/bwu_0218/allstars/moavi1.png]This[/url] was mine.[/quote]
Thanks, it means a lot. I guess next week I'll have to make one that leaves no doubt mine was the best :)